Category Archives: Jobs & Opportunity

A number of media outlets in the past few weeks have been assailing teachers’ and government workers’ unions for their implacable greed. It is important to draw the distinction between unions and their original purpose and unions in their current manifestation as politicized goliaths. When unions began forming, their grievances were well-founded . Hours and…

In a previous blog post we noted that public-sector unions impose higher labor costs, increase public debt, and lower the state’s management quality. The end result of the growth of public sector unions can be seen in California. A member of California’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was recorded saying “We helped to get you…

Unionized government workers now outnumber unionized workers in the private sector. What does this mean for taxpayers? Dr. Daniel D’Amico of Loyola University points out, “with collective contracts it is difficult to maintain good incentives for individual job performance.” In other words, better workers get the same wage as lower performing workers. Further, “if a…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a decreased unemployment rate of 9.7 percent in January. At the same time, economist John Williams from Shadow Stats estimated the SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate to be between 22 and 21 percent. Williams explains how the two calculations differ: The seasonally adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment…

Months after the passage of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, rising unemployment and questionable projects highlight the problems with stimulus spending. A Department of Labor report disclosed that, “In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1…